Get Up.

Hey.

It’s been a while.

Remember that time Dave was the one who was depressed? We got that shit managed and under control. Love won!

But now it’s me. I’m definitely not as bad as I was a few weeks ago. It was ugly.

The anxiety started right around the time Comey dropped his useless email bomb on America. I had a sick feeling that a lot of folks were going to believe it was significant (turns out it wasn’t, but TOO LATE!).

Then I had a full-blown panic attack on November 8. When I realized that he was going to win, I puked three times and went to bed.

The next day sucked. What followed is a blurry month of bathrobes and bed sheets.

I was down. Depressed. Dark and hopeless. I felt betrayed by racists (don’t even START with your argument for economics). I learned that my vote truly didn’t count (it’s one of those 3 million that made her the most popular candidate in history, but it wasn’t from the right state).

Our in-house economy was pretty bleak, too, so I felt like the world was falling apart. I cried a lot. I read incessantly. I cried some more.

Fuck breakfast. Fuck lunch. Fuck dinner. I didn’t do anything. I was a shitty wife and a shitty mother and a shitty employee.

Dave was concerned and took me to his therapist one Monday night and I just cried. She was amazing and I love her, and I started to feel a little more hope knowing that I wasn’t alone. She said that this malaise, this depression, is happening all over the country.

Is it happening to you?

One therapy appointment didn’t fix what ailed me, because the next day was another barrage of idiocy, stupidity, ignorance, and lies from the incoming administration. Mental note: that’s going to be a constant for the next 4 years (or however long he stays in office). Who are we? What are we doing?

I was next level. So I went to my primary care doctor and talked about it with her and she was like, “Yeah, this is a THING. It’s a deep despair and hopelessness. It’s happening to a lot of people.”

Is it happening to you?

She also said, “It’s not hopeless. We have come so far and so many people do not share this vision. Your hopelessness is a product of the distortion of depression.”

So she gave me MEDS AND THEY ARE AWESOME!

It’s taken about 2½ weeks and one dosage adjustment, and the results are remarkable.

This depression, this malaise, this "low" you feel is your body's way of telling you, "THIS IS NOT NORMAL." Listen, it's going to be like this for a while and if we need to be medicated for four years to make it through, so be it.

But the work doesn't get done unless we get out of bed. Get dressed. Get out the door into the snow or rain or sunshine and get to work. We need to look into the eyes our most vulnerable and extend a hand. The ONLY way it's going to get better is if a bunch of people work together to make it better, and we can't do that if we don't show up. 

It also doesn't help that the sun is out for like 38 minutes a day or whatever. No, I don't live in Alaska but I speak in hyperbole. You can translate.

Get up. Pick up trash at the park, or go to a Black Lives Matter meeting, or figure out how your city can change all the streetlights to LED, or fight for bike lanes, or vegetable gardens at every school, or native plants in city planters, or support refugees in your town, or become a Girl Scout leader or a Cub Scout leader, or go to Standing Rock, or walk dogs at your local shelter, or run for office...

Get up. Show up. You are needed and necessary. Go where your work is appreciated. Go where you are needed and wanted. Go where your heart tells you, and avoid people who do not appreciate your work. Local and internationally, your work is needed and necessary. It's going to take more than a safety pin to bind us back together.

It's going to take action. It's going to take elbow grease. It's going to take YOU.

The revolution will not be televised. It will happen in real life.

I want to tell you that the first thing you have to do is get up and deal with the depression. Call your doctor and take control (you can get health insurance here) (#ThanksObama). There are numerous medications with few side effects. You deserve to feel better. You deserve to have control. You deserve to have the will to fix this.

But first of all, you need to get up.